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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Does SpongeBob SquarePants Cause ADD or ADHD? Truth or Square Report

Coffee BeansSpongeBob's Truth or Square was released on October 26, 2009 for the Nintendo Wii with a MSRP of $39.99. The game was developed by Heavy Iron Studios, and published by Play THQ, which is "the family division of THQ".SpongeBob's Truth or Square received an "Everyone" rating from the ESRB with "Cartoon Violence, Comic Mischief" listed as content for parents/gamers to be aware of.

If SpongeBob's cartoon can cause ADD in young children, and video games are portrayed as even more evil than television by the media in general, by jumping to irrational conclusions we can assume that SpongeBob's Truth or Square video game causes ADHD! So, does the reported game-play data from the game provide any evidence of this? Let's take a look!

Approx. Number of Players Having Reported DataSpongeBob's Truth or Square has had about 48,139 Wii owners report game-play data through the Wii's Nintendo Channel, with 700 days possibly reported since the game released.

Average & Total Game-Play HoursSpongeBob's Truth or Square has 672,019 Total Hours of game-play reported, with an average of 13 Hours 58 Minutes "Per person" reporting data.The game's average play-time is 1 Hour 47 Minutes per day/session reported.

Sales InformationSpongeBob's Truth or Square's Amazon.com sale rank is #4,166, and it is currently selling for $18.47 with "Free Standard Shipping".
(Sale rank and price recorded around 2:00AM on September 27, 2011.)

The game has a 4.5 out of 5 Stars rating on Amazon.com, based on 16 customer reviews.SpongeBob's Truth or Square's customer review score average is 87.50%, when the customer reviews are converted to a 100% review scale.
(Review score averages recorded around 2:00AM on September 27, 2011.)

Filtered Thoughts
First, if you have not seen what SpongeBob's Truth or Square is about, the video below will give you a quick look at the game, and show off some game-play elements you can expect:

I had never watched a full episode of SpongeBob SquarePants until this past December(maybe November). While surfing Netflix for children cartoons, either Mrs. Coffee or I added SpongeBob to our queue, and that was the beginning of several weeks of endless SpongeBob episodes.
Our oldest son, who is only 2, calls him SquarePants, and our oldest son is sleeping in SpongeBob pajamas as I'm typing this! I can sing the SpongeBob theme song, I can quote random lines from different SpongeBob shows. I think SpongeBob's laugh is hilarious, and can grow on you...though too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing.When I saw a report a few weeks back saying that a study showed watching SpongeBob SquarePants can cause ADD in children, I first had to read the study, then I laughed-out-loud because if any child would have ADD because of SpongeBob, it would be our oldest son.
How is it possible we played/watched over 70 episodes, some multiple times, of the SpongeBob SquarePants shows in less than 2 months, and yet he can sit and play with a train set for hours? Sure, he has spells of high energy where he is running around playing with every single toy possible, so perhaps the study wasn't totally unfounded in that 2 year olds have high energy, but I think the target audience was way off and the study didn't really consider the fact, they are 2 years old!As for the reported game-play hours for SpongeBob's Truth or Square, I think the hours show that the players do not have ADD or ADHD when it comes to playing it, because they are sitting and playing the game for more than an hour at a time. I would expect the average play-time per day/session reported to be under 20 minutes, not 1 Hour 47 Minutes, if the children/gamers playing SpongeBob's Truth or Square had ADD or ADHD.

QuestionsAre any of you SpongeBob SquarePant's fans in general? If so, do you think SpongeBob causes, or could cause, children to develop ADD or even ADHD? Have any of you played SpongeBob's Truth or Square, and if so, what did you think about the game: good or bad? Is it a game you would recommend to other gamers, or perhaps parents with younger children that like SpongeBob?

If any of you are interested in SpongeBob's Truth or Square, you can see prices for it on Amazon.com linked below:

@GamesAndBiz:"...having no young ones of my own, there's been no real reason to."Ah, but it could be that you just start enjoying the show...and become addicted to it!

@Chalgyr:The "study" failed to mention one thing I think...SpongeBob has helped babysit more kids than any of those "researchers" ever will, even if they combined their efforts! Who has done society a greater good? Some random researchers with skewed research results, or SpongeBob? That's the real question.

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